


Not Until You Tell Him

by goldenkc



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Hugs, Love Confessions, anyway enjoy, bring on the sadness, i got sad writing this because they deserve so much and i love them, i think, madi doesn't want her parents fighting, no becho hate (even though i dont like them), parent trap!, set after 510, this is basically a hakeldama 2.0, this kind of conversation is inevitable and i can't wait
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 08:25:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15335829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenkc/pseuds/goldenkc
Summary: * 5x10 spoilers *madi doesn't like that bellamy and clarke are on opposite sides and does the only thing she can think of to make them face their feelings--lock them in a room.





	Not Until You Tell Him

**Author's Note:**

> this is what i'm hoping comes of after 510. this is in shadow valley, bellamy separates from wonkru to find the rest of spacekru and finds clarke and madi instead.
> 
> \--
> 
> also, this is my eighth bellarke fic. these fuckers have had me in a chokehold since 2014.

There’s a war going on outside. Bellamy runs from the battlefield and searches the cabins for the prisoners’ chambers. He needs to find his family, that’s all he knows.

Then he opens a door he almost wishes he hadn’t. He finds Clarke and Madi huddled together in the corner, the blonde with her hands over the ears of her kid, whispering reassurances.

They don’t see him right away, and for a moment, he thinks about backing away. The last time he’d see his best friend, she’d been slapping him across the face—rightfully so, he’d realized later.

Then the brunette looks up at him and grins. “Bellamy!” She almost sounds relieved. They stand quickly, and Clarke’s eyes widen.

For a split second, Bellamy could’ve sworn she almost looked happy to see him before she, too, remembered what had happened the last time they saw each other.

Clarke is too busy trying to look mad, and Bellamy is too busy looking like a kicked puppy for either of them to notice Madi sneak toward the door. It’s the sound of a lock turning that gets their attention away from the staring contest. Madi’s small face is all they can see through the window of a room with one door.

“Madi!” Clarke snaps, running to the door and banging her fists on the door before trying the knob again. “We don’t have time for this. You let us out of here right now!” she orders, and in any other circumstance, Madi would’ve mocked her for her use of the ‘mom’ voice.

“No!” she replies defiantly. “I’m not opening this door until you work this out.”

“Madi, this isn’t your place,” Bellamy tries, feeling like he’s standing too far away from Clarke.

The child shakes her head, furrowing her eyebrows. “You’re _Clarke and Bellamy_. You’re not supposed to be on opposite sides. You’re the two that fight together and save your people. This isn’t right. So fix it.” 

Then her face moves away from the window, giving the adults some privacy. Clarke doesn’t so much as glance at the man in the room with her. She can’t.

“Guess you told her too many stories.” He means it as a joke, but the unintentional tone in his voice makes him regret it.

“Oh, like you can talk,” Clarke spits back, crossing her arms. “We both know _Blodreina_ is pulled right from your bedtime mythology tales.”

Bellamy flinches a brow quickly. “I deserved that,” he mutters, but she hears him anyway.

She faces him again. She’s furious. “No. You deserve a hell of a lot worse.” Her jaw clenches as she shakes her head. “How could you?” her voice cracks.

She doesn’t need to specify what she means. He knows he crossed a line.

“You would have died. O was going to have you executed to prove a point. And Madi consented to the flame. I didn’t make her,” he tries reasoning.

“She loves you!” she shouts. “Of course she consented; because you told her it was what was best, right? You told her she’d be okay and she would save me, right?! You manipulated her, Bellamy, a _child!_ ”

This sets off a screaming match. They can barely understand the other person’s side, and it’s like they don’t recognize each other anymore. They’ve been apart six times longer than their time together on the ground.

They used to be so close. Best friends and co-leaders. It was those stories that Clarke had taught Madi. Nothing but pride in her voice for the man who’d saved her life time and time again. She’d told her surrogate daughter about their defeats and their triumphs and the difficult decisions they made and the burdens they carried together.

“ _Together_ ,” his voice echoes in her mind. It’s the thing that had kept her going those six years—the chance that they’d be together again.

It’s a good ten minutes before their throats are too sore to continue. Finally, Bellamy looks down as he shakes his head, placing his hands on his hips. He knows he’s in the wrong. But to him, the ends justified the means. “You would have died,” he repeats, slower this time.

Clarke turns away as she says, “I’d have rather died than put that poison in her head.”

He steps forward to put his hand on her shoulder, a pang of hurt running through him when she jerks her arms away, stepping next to the wall. She can’t let him see her right now. If she looks into those sad, warm, brown eyes one more time, she’ll cave.

“I couldn’t lose you again,” he admits, his tone making it harder and harder for her to stay angry.

At times like this, when he’s upset beyond belief, she was always the one he’d turned to. For advice, reassurance, a hug. She’d always been his saving grace. But now she was a stranger before him, and all he wants is _his_ Clarke back.

He cleared his throat, speaking quiet enough for her to hear. “Please, Clarke.” Her back straightens, still refusing to look at him. “You mean the world to me. I couldn’t risk losing you again.”

She finally turns to him, quickly wiping at the tears that had fallen. “She’s a child, Bellamy. _My_ child. And you risked her life for mine,” she says, trying to make him understand. “How am I supposed to forgive you for that?”

“There were no other options, Clarke.” Every time he says her name, her heart tightens a little, and she can’t take much more of it. “Giving Madi the flame was the best way to save you and stop the war. Our plan went to shit and Madi taking the flame became the only choice.”

Clarke held back a smirk at that. In another life, she’d have commented on the oxymoron. Bellamy isn’t the only one that misses the way things used to be. Clarke misses _her_ Bellamy so much, it hurts. It hurts every time she sees him with Echo, every time he mentions his new family, every time he walks in a room. Her heart aches for the old days when their worst problem was Mount Weather and the grounders.

“What happened to the man I used to lead with?” she asks rhetorically.

He says with tears in his eyes, “He died with you on the ground six years ago.” Then he continues with, “Mourning you was the hardest thing I've ever done.”

Clarke's face crumples. She can't even look at him because he's heartbroken and she can't stand seeing his face like this. She keeps her eyes closed as says, “I never wanted this for you. The grief, any of it.”

“I can take it,” he tells her softly. “What I can’t take is you being angry with me.”

She shakes her head, saying, “It’ll take a while for me to move on from this, Bellamy. This can’t be fixed easily.”

He nods. “I know that. I just want the chance for forgiveness. I’ll earn it.”

He reaches his hand out again, and this time, Clarke doesn’t pull back. He does that thing with his thumb, running it over the back of her hand and staring at her with such intensity—it has her hyperventilating.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she says, breathing deeply. She walks over to the door and slams a fist against the door. “Madi, you can let us out now.”

Madi’s face pops up, indicating that she’d been sitting at the door, listening to them this whole time. “Not until you tell him.”

Clarke’s face hardens, shaking her head. “Madi,” she says sternly. “Don’t—”

She barely has a word out before Madi says, “Tell him about the messages.”

This gets Bellamy’s intrigue. He furrows his brows, taking a slow step toward the blonde. “What messages?”

Clarke sighs, resting her forehead against the cool metal. “ _Fuck_ ,” she mutters to herself.

“Tell him about the messages you left him every day for 2199 days,” Madi says, looking at Clarke pointedly. “Tell him everything you told the radio you’d never let go of. Tell him what you told me. He deserves to know, Clarke,” she says the last sentence a little quieter.

Madi ducks down again and even with the raging battle outside, it feels all too quiet. Bellamy walks up to the woman, his voice unsteady as he mutters one word, “Clarke?”

She sighs again, licking her lips before she lifts her head to face him. She looks sad, he can tell, and guilty. “I’m sorry,” she says, despite how their conversation began. “I never wanted you to find out.”

“About what? What messages? What is she talking about?” He’s confused—clearly and understandably.

Clarke walks over to the table near the far wall and sits down atop it, her short legs swinging as they don’t touch the ground. “A couple weeks ago, you said I survived alone. And while I did have Madi… I had you, too.”

Bellamy stays near the door, resting against it because he feels as though his legs are barely supporting him. “What does that mean?”

“I used the radio in the rover. I tried to get it to receive messages, but it didn’t even send them. I was just talking to stay sane because I was alone for the first two months and I was barely making it through.” She looked up and gave him a small smile. “Talking to you helped. I told myself that you could hear me and just couldn’t get the output working on the Ring.”

“I didn’t know—”

“I figured that out,” she interrupts quickly. “You didn’t say anything, then Echo ran into your arms, and it all became pretty clear.”

“What?” he wonders aloud. This isn’t just sadness, he realizes. She’s hurt, and jealous. “Wait, you—”

“Of course I did,” she says, interrupting him again. But this time it’s because she can’t bear for him to finish that sentence. “But it was stupid of me to expect you to wait six years for me.”

Suddenly, he’s standing right in front of her, using his thumb to raise her chin. “I would have if I’d known.”

She nods, trying to smile because she doesn’t want him to feel guilty. “I know. We’ve always _just_ missed each other, haven’t we?”

“Clarke, I’ve always lo—”

“Please,” she whispers, squeezing her eyes tight. “Don’t. Don’t say it.”

His hands cup her cheeks, and she places her own hands over his, her eyes still closed. “Why not?”

“Because it’s not right, you know that.”

He does—doesn’t mean he likes it. What he has with Echo had helped him move on from Clarke, it was dependent and healing. What he had with Clarke may be gone, and that thought terrified him.

“But you know, right? That I do?” He’s respecting her wishes and not saying those three words, but he needs to know that she understands.

She rests her head on his chest, her arms snaking around his torso. She sniffles lightly, and he feels her nod against his shirt. “I know. I do, too.” And that’s enough for now.

Bellamy holds her tightly, wishing he’d never have to let go. They’ve made progress. She hasn’t forgiven him yet, but he’ll work on that. He knows it’s not fair to Echo to have these feelings for another woman. As much as he’s enjoyed his relationship with her, Clarke is the one he wants to be with.

He’s brought back to reality when he hears the door click. Madi stands with a hand on the doorknob, looking between her two heroes.

“Does he know?” Madi asks. Clarke nods, wiping under her eye and stepping away from Bellamy. “Okay then. Let’s go save everyone else.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! hit that kudos button to feed the ego :)


End file.
